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Portage's Torres driven by semistate disqualification


leggin89

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Mere seconds separated Portage's Gaige Torres from another trip to the state finals last winter.

That's when his season came crashing down on him.

Comfortably ahead of South Bend Clay's Jake Hartman in a 120-pound quarterfinal match at the Merrillville Semistate, Torres inadvertently slammed Hartman, who had to injury default. Torres was then disqualified.

"I tried to go up to his head, and I guess he trapped his arm," Torres said. "He ended up not going on (to state)."

Neither did Portage coach Leroy Vega, who was ejected for arguing the call and couldn't be on the Bankers Life Fieldhouse floor the next week.

"When your season ends the way Gaige's ended, it puts life and wrestling in perspective," Vega said. "People who care about you, who are supposed to protect you, can't tell you why. When you're a young kid, any time you have a sport taken away, it's something that's hard to deal with. It was a big growing up (process) for him."

Torres attended the state finals, supporting teammate 'Bam' Lawrence as he earned a medal. Watching the awards ceremony for his weight class wasn't easy.

"I didn't feel it until I was there, how heartbreaking it was not being down there," Torres said. "I was expecting to finish top four, at least."

The pain didn't go away quickly. Vega gives all his wrestlers time off after state and had Torres take an even longer break.

"When he came back, I still felt he was a little off," Vega said. "He wasn't right until a month or two ago. He finally got over it. It's time to move on, to work hard and grab what you want. It happened for a reason. It made him re-focus."

What was once holding Torres down and is now lifting him.

"It was definitely one of the hardest times in my life," he said. "I thought about it a lot, but I've moved on from it. It made me more mature, for sure. It made me a young man. It's making me work a lot harder. It motivated me to not be in that same position again. You know you can have anything taken away from you just like that. It makes you look at every match like it could be your last. I'm going to learn from my mistake and capitalize on it the next time."

Torres didn't lack in work ethic last season, but didn't always train at the state champion's level that Vega talks about, where a wrestler goes the extra mile to reach his athletic pinnacle.

"It's got to be the No. 1 choice in your life," Vega said. "Sometimes, you have to make sacrifices, technology, phones, friends, girlfriends. You have to put your life into it. We tell them, you find out who your friends are when you get to the top. The people next to you, they're the ones who understand why you made the sacrifice."

On a largely underclassmen Portage team brimming with young talent, much is expected of Torres, both on and off the mat.

"It's tough, being young, with all we ask of them, but he's starting to get the point," Vega said. "He understands winning a state championship isn't easy. Now it's finally his No. 1 goal to want to win it."

After having senior Julian Torres to push him as a freshman, not having a drilling partner of his caliber (other than the coaches) hampered Torres last season. Now that he's at 126, paired with the nationally-ranked Lawrence, all is good in the room again.

"Off the mat, we're like brothers," Torres said. "On the mat, we're like enemies battling. It's going to make us better individually and as a team. I'm going to wrestle hard every single match, no matter who it is.  Be smart. I know what I want this year. I want to win it all."

 

 

http://www.nwitimes.com/sports/high-school/wrestling/portage-s-torres-driven-by-semistate-disqualification/article_cc1be574-fde0-5328-aecc-642c504f2956.html

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